DALE MCFEATTERS: Shutdown not a sign of 'perfectionism'

The last time the federal government shut down was three days in February 2010 during a blizzard.

The government may shut down again Saturday, but this time, unlike the snow, it will be from factors Washington is more used to — arrogance, overconfidence, miscalculation and bad judgment.

A short-term bill to fund the government expires April 8 and come midnight when the money runs out the government, in theory, will turn out the lights and send everybody home.

But in fact no one really knows what will happen. Every agency and the White House Office of Management and Budget has a plan in the event of a shutdown but these plans are closely held.

Among other delicate matters the plans specify who is an "essential employee" and who is not.

It is generally, and probably correctly, believed that the government would keep certain essential services running — law enforcement, armed services, corrections, air traffic control.

That likely includes the Transportation Security Administration although it would be interesting to see what would happen if the government sent the screeners home and airline boarding reverted to the way it was in the mid-20th century.

Sadly, it wouldn't work. We have probably lost the ability to board an airplane without direction. Like the brutalized and oppressed Arab masses we would probably have antigovernment riots in the absence of the security services and we would keep our shoes on and our pants up while we did so.

The last government shutdown, in 1995-96, was for reasons remarkably similar to the current impasse. The Republicans wanted deep cuts in federal spending; the Democrats were holding out for only token cuts.

Then as now, the Republicans had only just gained control of the House with the election of large numbers of overconfident and inexperienced freshmen. They brazenly shut down the government twice, once in December and again in January.

House Republicans told President Bill Clinton if he didn't cave in to their demands it would wreck his presidency.

He didn't, and the government shut down, with the usual unintended consequences.

The Social Security Administration furloughed most of its 50,000 employees and when the impact of unmailed checks and unprocessed claims sank in, it called most of the workers back to their jobs. Faced with the choice of sticking to principle or having their offices fill up with irate oldsters, the Republicans wisely chose to rise above principle.

Now that Newt Gingrich appears to be running for president, it's worth recalling one of the more bizarre incidents of that shutdown. For whatever inexplicable reason, Gingrich, then the GOP House speaker, declared that the reason he had shut the government down was that Clinton had made him ride in the rear of Air Force One. Talk about abandoning the moral high ground.

This shutdown battle has equally strong personalities — Charles Schumer, the number three Democrat in the Senate, and Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, are generally agreed to be two of the most nakedly ambitious people in Washington.

It is said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera; judging from the face time he's getting, Cantor doesn't seem to be too far behind.

They have brought something new to the fight — dueling Twitter feeds. Several times a day the principals tweet the Republican narrative — Democrats are determined to protect spending at any cost — and the Democratic narrative that Republicans won't come to a sensible compromise because they're terrified of the tea party wing of their party.

The 87 new Republicans, many elected with tea party support, are being portrayed as all-or-nothing fanatics who believe that the good is the enemy of the perfect.

The Democrats even have their own name for them: The Perfectionist caucus.

Washington is used to arrogance, overconfidence, miscalculation and bad judgment.